Baking for days

It's 02:07 and I've baked 7 mini flour-less chocolate cakes and have another four in the oven. So much for last night's marathon sleep (21:30 until 12:30) resetting my sleep cycle. There's also a large bowl of dough chilling so that I can get up early (ha) and bake some lebkuchen while I prepare some jam drops and shortbread. I'm on a bit of a baking kick...

I state that for the benefit of the majority of you who will not witness the results of tonight's grocery shopping. Purchases include:
- 5kg bakers flour
- 1kg pastry flour
- 2kg caster sugar
- 1kg brown sugar
- ground cloves
- butter milk
- 1.25kg unsalted butter
- 440g almond meal
- several mini cake tins
- 36 eggs
- 1 pot of strawberry conserve
- 1 pomegranate

As you can tell, my baking is probably not the healthiest I've done, although the flourless chocolate cake involves surprisingly little sugar. The pomegranate has very little to do with the baking and more to do with my newly discovered love of the flavour pomegranates.

The oven is beeping at me. I should probably make it stop.

Midnight Cakes

Not only am I nocturnal, I'm beginning to make a habit of baking cakes at midnight. This is of course totally in line with Dad's nocturnal habits but I'm sure it's not good for us!

Tonight's cake was a simple pound cake made with a recipe that I've altered a bit and am still tweaking. Perhaps a little less egg but otherwise a delicious cake that will be perfect with my morning (ha!) coffee.

Speaking of coffee I don't think I've mentioned how in love I am with our new espresso machine, which in all honesty isn't that new any more as we've had it for almost a month... Purchased the day after the dishwasher caught fire which I also seem to have failed to mention. I guess that's what happens when I write while I should be asleep.

I have had a fairly productive day today despite only making it out of bed at 13:00. I've achieved 80% of what I wanted to do.

Tomorrow I'm aiming to:
- do at least one load of washing
- clean the bathroom
- head to the post office and post my international mail
- head to the supermarket to pick up some supplies for further baking adventures
- have a cup of coffee with a slice of tonight's cake
- read another chapter of The Pleasure of my Company and one of The Ghost's Child (apparently children's fiction and literature have captured my attention from the stack of sci-fi/fantasy that's sitting by my bed
- write a few more cards
- finish the entrelac scarf that I've been making out of Noro's Silk Garden yarn.

We'll see how I go... first I need to get out of bed before noon! Excellent practice for Tuesday when I have to be at work at 09:00. Wish me luck!

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie

Yesterday was Gene's birthday. I was not as prepared for celebrations as I'd planned to be as it's been a big week at home. (I keep saying that but the weeks seem growing exponentially).

I started and have already failed my attempt for 1 photo per day. No matter it's the quality over quantity thing I say! I will share two photos though.

The view from my window:


Dad's first finger-knitting experience:


Dad learnt how to finger knit earlier this week and what you're seeing in the picture is a headband he made for Mum.

Further finger-knitting explorations have been put on hold as Mum went into hospital on Friday. Turns out she has a lesion or tumour on the head of her pancreas (might not be diabetic after all). So she went in for surgery on Friday where they removed her gall bladder (neither of my parents have gall bladders now) and bypassed the ducts that had been blocked by the growth. Sadly they couldn't remove it as there were too many surrounding blood vessels. So they took a biopsy and we'll know the results today or tomorrow. It's looking like she'll go for radiotherapy when she's better. Mum's still in hospital, probably till the end of the week but she's recovering well with her sense of humour well in tact.

While I'm sure other things happened this week I can't recall them. Priorities and all!

So it was Gene's birthday yesterday and I was unprepared. The space invader socks have proven far more time-consuming than I had bargained for and I had to start again with finer wool and less time. The short-row knitted beanie that I'd started for him was gigantic. It was looking a bit disastrous. I had to resort to plan B - making it up as I went along. In the end there was a large cookie cake (think two cake sized cookies with chocolate-cream-cheese icing) and a crocheted beanie. Why the cookie-cake? When I was at uni in Ballarat in one of my end of semester assessment interviews the topic of Gene came up and one of my lecturers said that Gene was a smart cookie (I was a good fish apparently). As for the beanie it was crocheted quickly in Gene colours as he said he'd lost his Barcelona beanie.

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie! I hope you still had fun even though you had to work last night!

A Gingerbread Family

Caution: Naked Gingerbread Women Ahead

I've had many blog entries in mind today. Each one of them writing themselves in my mind differently depending on my mood at the time. Believe me when I say they were largely variations and a tediously melancholy theme.

Not sure why this is. Think I just started the day badly. Not sure how though.

My lousy mood aside the day has been a lovely one full of things to be happy about.

For one my birthday present from my folks arrived just after midday in a courier van. A sleek black set of JBL Onstage II speakers. The remote control hasn't left me yet.

In an attempt to break Grumpus' hold on me I started to bake. After all any girl who's feeling down loves a good snacking session on something sweet and I do love my baking! Plus I got to try out the lovely new baking tray that we bought on the weekend.

Current Cookie Count:
- 16 raspberry jam drops
- 12 wildberry jam drops
- 28 chocolate "jam" drops
- a gingerbread family

After the delicious chicken & mushroom risotto that Gene cooked we sat around the table and decorated the gingerbread people that I'd baked earlier.



It was a wonderful way to spend time with my family. It's not something that I get to do everyday even though we're all living in the same house at the moment. We all have our own rhythms and routines and often spend our time doing our own thing but tonight we sat around the table, grabbing the various tubes of icing and made our own little family of gingerbread folk and that was the best part of the day.

I've spent a bit of time with my parents over the weekend. Driving up to Sassafras for another visit to Tea Leaves for yet another tea buying spree (this time for Dad who is now the happy owner of 500g of ceylon pekoe and 100g orange pekoe tea). Then gorging ourselves on the delicious Yarra Valley icecream (this is starting to sound like an ad for Mount Dandenong isn't it?). It was a great way to spend some time with my folks before returning to our normal routines.

So even though I'm feeling a out of sorts today I'm content in the knowledge that things will improve again and making a gingerbread family with my family was the best way to cheer me up.

Distractions

Well it's back into the rehearsal room again tonight for the "Scottish Play" Rock Opera. It's my last rehearsal with the group I think as I'm only filling in for a couple of days this week. It's been good to be back in a rehearsal room although odd filling in for someone you don't know. Anyhow I've learned a bit about Sibellius so that's been good.

I noticed that I fell off the face of the blogging planet again but I've been distracted by no only the joy of having an oven again or my knitting (sock has been stalled at row 49) but my shiny new laptop.

It's a bit of a tradition to name your laptop/computer at my place so I thought long nd hard about it. After all my iPod is Deep Thought. I had many suggestions for more Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy names but as my first reaction to the laptop was "shiny!" Gene suggested that it would be better named Serenity.

That pretty much sums up what has been entertaining me for the last couple of days. Synchronising information across the laptops and setting it up just the way I like it. Important things like desktop pictures and backing up music. I love it. It's just like setting up an office but with less physical effort. Perfect for a lazy summer's day. :)

Yesterday I was happily distracted by Sim City 4 Rush Hour. Yes, I'm a control freak at heart but I love these simulation games. My city's doing quite well thank you for asking!

Today I've promised myself that I have to achieve some of my to-do list before I can continue to build my thriving metropolis.

I'm doing okay so far. Aside from procrastinating while writing my blog. I just need to get to the bank so I can change my date of birth. According to them I'm born in September. News to me... Mum & Dad might be surprised too...

The only other thing I really should do is get around to baking the banana cake that I bought buttermilk for yesterday... The bananas are, to quote Mum, a bit on the nose. Might make some more sweet potato and green bean salad too. It was my favourite dish from dinner on Sunday which involved AU$80 roast pumpkin soup (that's Dad's story to tell so you'll have to wait until he tells it then I'll make the link), a simple roast garlic, tomato and mushroom pasta and the aforementioned and below salad. Tasty :)



I think it must be dinner party time. Anyone for dinner?

Back to Baking

Happy birthday everyone. It's the seventh day of Chinese New Year today, also known as everybody's birthday (birthday of humans). I must say it's one of my favourite days of the CNY celebrations as it's the day that we feast on yu sang which is a raw fish salad. The raw fish is eaten to bring sucess through the year Aside from my love of sashimi I love this dish because it's a lot of fun to to eat. Before the salad is eaten everyone gets their chopsticks and tosses the salad together. The aim of this is to toss the salad the highest as it's meant to be luckier the higher you manage to toss it. This can get a little messy but most of the salad usually ends up back in the bowl! You're also supposed to eat noodles for longevity.

It's been a good day today. I've made progress on the sock that I started from the funky sock yarn that Gene bought me in Norway.

Sadly I am out of form with my knitting so my hand started to ache after a mere 24 rows of sock knitting.

Having been inspired by the cookie baking that occurred in Stranger Than Fiction, which we watched with Matt on Thursday, I started baking again. Gosh it's good to have an oven again!

Awake

Well, so much for the daily writing eh! In my defense I did write in my journal, I just didn't blog.

Monday is my new day off and it feels much more normal. It was weird having Saturday as the start of a new week. At least Mondays is the theatre "weekend".

Much like our last day off together we didn't do much. In fact I think we did even less than we did last time. I carefully avoided the coffee table by spending most of the time in bed asleep or, in braver moments, mere centimetres away from it on the couch. The most productive part of the day involved making brownies (pecan fudge) which we proceeded to not eat because we weren't feeling well. We think that the gastro bug that's going around may have finally come to visit us.

Yesterday was shabby. Very shabby. I totally missed the shuttle bus and ended up calling a car to take me into work. We stopped by the supermarket so that I could get some yoghurt to try and settle my stomach and actually have something for breakfast as we didn't manage to stomach dinner the previous night. Happily the symptoms eased during the day. Well, mine did. Gene still wasn't 100% at dinner but he made a good go of it!

My dreams are full on spreadsheets and whiteboard markers at the moment. While it means that I'm sleeping in short bursts it means that I'm awake for a quick chat with Gene before he drifts off to sleep and I leave for work.

Plans for our Europe trip are slowly taking shape...

It's looking like we'll stay in a 3 star apartment about 20 minutes from central Paris when we arrive. Apparently the Metro is really close and Gene's confident he can get us around as he's had experience so I'll be making the booking soon. It allows us to stay in/near Paris for longer.

So far our Paris activities and London activities have had the most thought. We're planning to see Wicked, Cabaret and Spamalot while we're in London. It's probably going to cost us a fortune but I'm sure it'll be worth it!

More details are likely to follow on Monday when we've had some time to think about it a bit more and discuss. Gene got our copy of Europe on a shoestring back from his old villa so we'll be reading that a bit more in the next coming weeks for ideas!

Less thinking more sleeping for now!

Retiring Grumpus

In my defence I have been meaning to post a new blog during the last week and a half but it's been getting rather busy here in Doha with plenty of things to see and do... most of them work related so unblogable (if that's a word).

Our new villa is wonderful, albeit identical the the one that I moved out of, and we've met our housemate Nevine who is also wonderful. Gene & I are in the master bedroom which is larger than our flat in Footscray was and a little smaller than our place in Brunswick East, perhaps two thirds of the size. We bought our own sheets and they are the most gorgeous cotton sheets that I've ever owned. Soft as soft stuff as Gene would say. Most importantly they're not white. This is the view from just in front of the bedroom window. The little alcove where you can see the mirror leads to our ensuite.


The view from our villa is essentially the same as the view from my last villa with a different villa number on the door.

Most excitingly since my last post it has started to cool down in Doha. The evening breezes are actually cool! Apparently even the spa-temperature-pool has cooled down. Some of the local crew have assured me that "madam will need a jacket soon!", I hope they're right.

Aside from that there's not much to report. I made choc-chip cookies and dolmades over the last week or so. I failled miserably at biryani (planning to try again with different meat and less dairy products). My work hours have changed from a day shift to a late morning-evening shift which is more productive than the day shift was. This does mean that I tend to get up in the mid-morning and run for the shuttle. The evening sees me coming home, eating, doing logic puzzles and then falling asleep before the mid-morning hits again. Less time for blogging as Opening gets closer. 54 days to go!

On the food front, Amy cooked a wonderful laksa for us on Friday night. While I'm not usually one to order a laksa at home, this was one tasty meal! She made plenty of chocolate brownies for dessert as well... I may have eaten too much again. Seems to be what I do on Fridays... eat too much... This coming weekend we're planning to try the Ramadan tent at the Ritz Carlton. It's meant to be the best tent although I've heard the Arabic music can get a bit much.

Another reason that I haven't posted recently is that Grumpus took over for awhile and peaked yesterday when I'd planned to respond to Nai, Nick & Deb's comments. Many things were making me grumpy. One of the biggest things that made me grumpy was my iPod completely dying. It's cactus. It's telling me to see the iPod support site. I did that. I tried to restore the iPod. Failled. Tried to initialise it (like the site told me to). Failled. So now I'm going to get a new one from eBay. It's brand new in a box and should be Fed-Exed to me in about three days time. For now I'm carting my laptop around with me and there's no music on the way to work.

Not wanting to finish on a grumpy note... I should mention that yesterday I received my first Arabic love letter... well it's more of a note... Nevine taught Gene how to write our names in Arabic yesterday so he's written Sarah heart Gene (read from right to left of course). How romantic :)

Speaking of which, this is the view from outside the reception of the office at dusk.